How to polish stainless steel
The more time you put in sanding the stainless steel the better.
Depending on the depth of the scratches, you may start with a 180 grit dry paper and work your way up with the dry stuff to about 320 grit.
At that point you will probably need to go to the wet papers 320g. At that point you could probably polish the stainless steel by hand to get that chrome-like finish with a Mothers Polish (my favorite for years).
Of course there are buffers with wheels you can dress with various compounds and buffing sticks, but I'm guessing you don't have that kind of equipment. And if you do set one up be sure it runs at no more than 1750 RPMS. The small bench grinders are way to high on the RPM scale to work well enough to be comfortable with. And a wheel can aggressively on corners and edges that may distort the part.
Sadly there are no shortcuts to a mirror finish- a nice finish, yes. But a mirror finish is all about the time invested to get the surface as sand scratch free as possible.
How to polish stainless steel
Say goodbye to your fingerprints and fingernails!
Cheers
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